Clippers head coach Doc Rivers poses with first-round draft picks Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, left, and Jerome Robinson earlier this summer. The Clippers open their season Oct. 17 at home against Denver. (Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)

With their work cut out for them in a loaded Western Conference, the Clippers open their season on Oct. 17, when they host the Denver Nuggets, according to the regular-season schedule the NBA released Friday.

The Clippers won’t meet LeBron James and the Lakers until after Christmas. The first all-L.A. matchup, on Dec. 28, will be hosted by the Lakers, whom the Clippers have defeated in 21 of their previous 24 matchups. The teams’ next three games are Jan. 31, March 4 and April 5.

Clippers fans outside of L.A. shouldn’t expect to see much of their team on TV: With their star wattage dimmed without Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan and Chris Paul, there are only 15 national Clippers broadcasts scheduled.

TNT will broadcast three Clippers games and NBA TV has lined up 12, including Dec. 28 and March 4 against the Lakers (who are slated to play on national TV 43 times). The Clippers don’t figure into ABC and ESPN’s plans.

By comparison, when last season began and Griffin and Jordan were still Clippers, the team was allotted 31 national TV appearances. In each of the six seasons before that, the Clippers appeared in at least 29 nationally televised games.

Sign up for Home Turf and get exclusive stories every SoCal sports fan must read, sent daily. Subscribe here.

No national TV coverage is scheduled for the Jan. 12 game against the Detroit Pistons, when Griffin will return to L.A. to face the Clippers for the first time since being traded to the Detroit Pistons almost a year earlier.

Jordan, who signed a one-year deal with the Dallas Mavericks this offseason, is scheduled to return for the first time on Dec. 20 in a game that will be on TNT.

Early on, the Clippers’ game at home on Oct. 21 against Chris Paul and the Houston Rockets will be televised on NBA TV. There also was a national audience for Paul’s return in a testy game last season on Martin Luther King Day, which included drama that bled off the court when security guards stopped Rockets players headed toward the Clippers’ locker room.

After finishing 42-40 and just out of the playoffs last season, the Clippers face the back-to-back champs four times this season: Their games against the Golden State Warriors are Nov. 12 (NBA TV), Dec. 23, Jan. 18 and April 7 (NBA TV).

And after starting the season earlier in an effort to grant teams more rest in-season, the Clippers again will play 14 back-to-back contests this season, down from 18 two seasons ago.

The Clippers’ longest trip will last six games, from Feb. 2-11 for games in Detroit, Toronto, Charlotte, Indiana, Boston and Minnesota.

The longest Clippers homestand also will consist of six games, between March 8-19, when they’ll host Oklahoma City, Boston, Portland, Chicago, Brooklyn and Indiana.

The Clippers will play four of their first six at home, including against the Thunder on Oct. 23. Another marquee matchup with San Antonio is set for Nov. 15 in L.A.

The Clippers will face every team in the Western Conference four times – except Houston, Minnesota, New Orleans and Utah, whom they’ll play three times apiece.

Preseason play will include five games, including one on Oct. 6 against the Lakers at Honda Center, three against Minnesota, Denver and Maccabi Haifa Basketball Club (from Israel) at Staples Center, as well as a Sept. 30 game against Australia’s Sydney Kings at the Stan Sheriff Center at the University of Hawaii.

Mirjam Swanson covers the Clippers and the NBA for the Southern California News Group. Previously, she wrote about LeBron James and the rest of the Dream Team at the 2004 Olympics (where, yes, they took bronze) and Tiger Woods’ last (for now) major championship. Most recently, she’s covered city government, education and the occasional bear in a backyard.